All season long, the Eagles went out of their way to defend Kevin Patullo as offensive coordinator.
They refused to make an in-season change. Head coach Nick Sirianni adamantly opposed to take over play-calling duties.
No matter what could be seen by any observer of Eagles football games, or was written about the lack of an identity for the offense other than it being too conservative, the Eagles insisted that they still believed in their offense and that everything would be all right when it mattered most.
But after getting bounced by the San Francisco 49ers 23-19 in the NFC Wild Card game, a game in which the offense all but disappeared in the second half, as per usual, the first chance that anyone above Patullo's pay grade had a chance to talk about his performance as offensive coordinator, all the support went out the window.
Looking stunned, dejected, and like he wanted to be anywhere else but behind a podium answering questions about his team's failure, Sirianni was asked about Patullo's performance as a coordinator.
And after weeks of defending his good friend, who he promoted into the position, he gave a non-answer that spoke volumes.
Head Coach Nick Sirianni and Eagles players speak with the media. #FlyEaglesFly https://t.co/6AbqthSCR2
"There will be time to evaluate everybody's performance," Sirianni told reporters at his postgame press conference. "Right now I feel for all our guys in the locker room - all the players, all the coaches, the front office, everybody that works so hard. The fans that come out to support us. Mr. (Jeffrey) Lurie. I feel for all of us. All of them. There'll be time to evaluate everything at the end ... coming up."
Not necessarily a ringing endorsement, eh?
If that's the first indication of a backing away from Patullo, it's likely that he won't be in his job for much longer - and Jalen Hurts will be onto yet another new offensive coordinator within the next couple months.
The Eagles seemed to be waiting for the offense to figure it out every week, and they never could - with exceptions for games against league doormats, like the Raiders, Commanders and Giants, and that one week in Minnesota. That was fun, remember?
"It's been a common thing," Saquon Barkley - who did his part rushing for 106 yards in the playoff loss - told reporters. "It's easy to be like, 'We expect to get to the playoff and it's going to change.' It just didn't, you know?
"You tell me ... we played, what, 18 games this year. You tell me a time on offense we put together two halves. I bet you it was under five."
Barkley is right. it is less than five. It goes to show just how frequently the Eagles defense had to drag the team to 11 victories.
Now, Patullo wasn't the only problem on offense. After all, to begin with, it's Sirianni's offensive design. Then you have all the A.J. Brown drama, the offensive line taking a hug step backwards, the conservative mediocrity of Jalen Hurts in many games this season, and the predictability of what the offense was going to do after their 20-or-so scripted plays - so there's more than enough blame to go around than just the guy calling the plays.
But someone has to take the fall.
Game on the line, 4th & 11, and this is what Kevin Patullo and Nick Sirianni come up with?
Sickening. #FlyEaglesFly | @speakeasytlkshw https://t.co/3YMk4kmb0M pic.twitter.com/z2T3p3LNeg
There's too much money invested in Hurts for it to be the quarterback. Sirianni probably has enough equity with his bosses from winning a Super Bowl 12 months ago that he gets another shot, even if he's a CEO coach, the two seasons on either side of that championship were brutal, and there are better coaches currently out there on the market.
So, Patullo is the easy target.
There will likely be other changes to the offense as well. But someone has to pay for the sins of an underwhelming offense on a defending Super Bowl Champion.
And it sounded like Sirianni started shining the light immediately after being eliminated in the direction of where those changes are likely to begin.
